Reflections on the state of the world which proceed with the scriptures in one hand and the newspaper in the other

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Dilemmas
at the heart of academia - I

Two
possibilities, neither acceptable

The Wikipedia
entry on dilemma includes the
following:

(Greek: δί-λημμα "double proposition") a
problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable.
One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the
horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable.

All of us
find ourselves in dilemmas in our lives. Rarely are they foreseen and usually
they are unavoidable. And so I found myself in a dilemma recently involving a
student in an online section of the humanities course I am facilitating this
summer (having long since dissuaded myself of the notion that one actually
teaches much of anything online). It involved a student who ironically got
caught by their own honesty and it has raised questions about online classes
that are disturbing.

But first a
little background.

Finessing
the Cash Cows

It is
important to note up front that, regardless of the noble spin put on it, the
primary reasons for online courses are largely economic. Some universities use
them to relieve overcrowding, having admitted far more students than they could
ever house in classrooms, this in pursuit of tuition dollars to make up for
those cut by state legislatures. They also use them to insure that basic
classes toward graduation can be offered, often using adjuncts to do so. Not
only is this a cheaper class to offer since adjunct pay is about as close to
slave labor as one finds in the professional middle class but many universities
add a technology fee for students as yet an additional means of fundraising. Clever,
no?

Many
universities have come to see themselves as competing with for-profit
credentials factories who pioneered the use of online courses. But since
brazenly ripping off a university’s cash cows is seen as unseemly for the
manufacturers of professional middle class respectability, online classes must inevitably
be packaged in public relations.

Online
offerings are often cynically cast in terms of access. Occasionally that spin
includes notions of making classes available to those who cannot physically
attend courses on college campuses. On the surface, such claims sound as if
universities actually care about students’ ability to obtain a higher education,
particularly the working class. But such claims are hollow in the light of the
reality that actual access to face-to-face classes for many students has been made difficult if not impossible by overcrowding, underfunding and the cutbacks to scholarships.

The reality is, in
most cases a majority of students in online courses are actually on campus but
take them to avoid the obligation of having to attend class. But for the
handful who actually engage in distance education, mostly for financial
reasons, online classes are a college-lite bone tossed to those who will not be
admitted to the full life of a university.

Of course,
there are some students who find online courses appealing. The trouble is, the
appeal is inevitably something other than educational. Full-time working
students often feel they have no other options than online classes since they
simply cannot take time off from work and family duties to attend classes on
campus. This is a testament to the lack of support offered students in a
culture with an attitude toward higher education that is highly conflicted on a
good day. A culture that values educated members of society provides the means
for its people to achieve higher educations.

Other
students come to online classes with the presumption that they will be easy. The
presumption is that a class which does not require a student to actually attend
class probably won’t require much else from them. The reality is that few
students have the time management skills to successfully complete online
courses according to the current studies on this subject. Self-discipline is the determining factor in whether one thrives (about
1/3) or dives (all the rest including the up to 1/3 of the enrolled students
who end up withdrawing).

Sadly, most online
programs are sold to working adults as hoops to jump through for career
advancement. This is a testament to the successful construction of education as
mere training for jobs and little else. What’s even sadder is that most American
students have willingly bought into this minimalist vision of higher education
today.

Online
classes are “delivered” (the description used by most academic technocrats and their
corporate managers) to consumers formerly known as students who are sold
on such deliveries (all one has to do is open the package to enjoy the contents,
right?) with promises of convenience. This teaches a meta-lesson in itself
which has implications for every aspect of higher education: if students are
actually consumers who are buying their credentials, don’t consumers have the
right to make all kinds of demand on both the content and the process of that
delivery?

Might that
not include a presumed entitlement to cheat?

Cheating
Encouraged?

It is hardly
a secret that online classes encourage cheating on quizzes by their very nature.
To begin with, one never knows who might actually be taking the quiz since the
student is not physically present. The incidences of cheating in places like my
alma mater, FSU, are fairly well documented and they are hardly confined to the
athletic dorms. In an online quiz, one can have someone else take the quiz for
them. Students can take the quiz as a group figuring out the answers collectively. And
it’s always possible to use the text and one’s notes to answer the questions.

No muss, no
fuss, easy A - one more reason for consumers to choose online courses to
procure needed credits toward vocational credentials.

To make
matters worse, the opportunity to cheat is virtually insured by the university’s
discouragement if not open prohibition of requiring online students to come to
campus to take quizzes in a monitored setting. Never, ever question the university’s avoidance of its responsibilities to
provide actual functioning classroom space for instruction of students (that’s
why the classes are online in the first place, silly). And never, ever question the student-consumer’s
perceived entitlement to convenience - a premier value of consumerism - in the
modern vocational credentials factory. The notion that a student might actually
invest something of themselves such
as time and the inconvenience of actually coming to campus so as insure
academic integrity (so that their grade might actually mean something) is
ludicrous in the light of consumerist presumptions which now dominate student perceptions
of higher education.

I realized
several years ago that the university was willing to countenance cheating when
we were informed in a faculty meeting that unless one specifically told
students a quiz was closed book, it had to be presumed to be open book. Clever
move. The burden is now shifted to the instructor to tell students they cannot
cheat and then to prove it when they do.

Perhaps more
troubling than this failure in the university’s moral leadership is the
presumption it evidences about the character of its students: that students
will and – unless told otherwise – probably
should cheat. And if they do cheat and the instructor has failed to tell them
they couldn’t, it’s the fault of the instructor. As usual in public education,
any semblance of accountability for any of the parties other than the actual
teachers is completely absent.

Of course,
this is one of the many open secrets one is never
supposed to mention publicly in today’s academia. G-d forbid naked emperors be
exposed. But the meta-lesson of this policy is hardly lost on students. In an
institution which has told them repeatedly in word and example that “It’s all
about me,” it should not be surprising that students would presume the right to
cheat as a means of pursuing self-interest.

About Me

I am a fifth generation Floridian, a fourth generation educator, third generation college educator. My great grandparents were named Reed and Wright so I guess it was fate that I would end up a teacher. I am a recovering lawyer who still holds an inactive license with the Florida Bar (I stopped practice in 1990) and an ordained Episcopal priest. My spirituality is that of an inner world (nature) mystic. I am Franciscan to my very core, a professed member of 26 years in the Third Order Society of St. Francis (TSSF). Andy , my gentle souled, soft-spoken partner of 44 years became my legal husband in 2010 on the steps of the US Supreme Court. He is G-d's greatest gift to my life. I live within two hours of my nuclear family members. Historically I have been a yellow dawg Democrat though my politics are decidedly Green. I hold a Ph.D. in Religion, Law and Society from FSU, an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, member seminary of the GTU in Berkeley, CA, and a J.D. and a B.A. in History and Secondary Ed from the University of Florida. I complete a two year program at Richard Rohr’s Living School for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque, NM August 2017.